Relative Quotes - Page 5

• I am in awe, in admiration of the man who Gaius Julius Caesar was. I don't actually do him as the man himself. He is maybe a distant relative. It's hard to approach the real man because he is such an awesome icon.

  Karl Urban

  Real, Men, Icons

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• Determinism is the thesis that is true at every moment that the way things then are determines a unique future, that only one of the alternative futures that may exist relative to a given moment is a physically possible continuation of the state of things at the moment. Or, if you like, we may say that determinism is the thesis that only one continuation of the state of things at a given moment is consistent with the laws of nature.

  Peter van Inwagen

  Unique, Law, Alternatives

  Peter Van Inwagen (1993). “Metaphysics”

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• Truth is, of course, relative. But then, so is relative.

  James Sallis

  Truth Is, Courses

  James Sallis (2012). “The Killer is Dying”, p.21, Oldcastle Books

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• Well, I think by any expectation South Africa has come a tremendously long way. We've seen a society that many people thought couldn't withstand a peaceful transition to democracy without a great deal of violence, in fact, make that transition and do it in relative peace and security.

  Susan Rice

  Thinking, Long, People

  "Road to Riches". Interview with Mishal Husain, www.pbs.org. August 28, 2003.

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• Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you traveled. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister.

  Douglas Adams

  Sister, Time, Brother

  Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.706, Pan Macmillan

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• The criterion for free choice can never be an absolute one, but neither is it entirely relative.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Choices, Criteria, Absolutes

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “Towards a Critical Theory of Society: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse”, p.52, Routledge

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• A parallel between color and music can only be relative – just as a violin can give warm shades of tone, so yellow has shades, which can be expressed by various instruments.

  Wassily Kandinsky

  Color, Yellow, Giving

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• The trouble with institutional investors is that their performance is usually measured relative to their peer group and not by an absolute yardstick. This makes them trend followers by definition.

  George Soros

  Groups, Peers, Followers

  George Soros, Byron Wien, Krisztina Koenen (1995). “Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve”, p.312, John Wiley & Sons

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• Politics and power is a realm of relative influence.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Influence, Realms

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• In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike.

  Walter Pater

  Eye, Two, World

  Walter Pater (2013). “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry”, p.154, Courier Corporation

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• Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

  Alice James

  Dream, Giving Up, Reality

  Alice James (1934). “Her Brothers Her Journal”

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• We are on track for a 3.5 deg C rise by 2040 (i.e. 4.2 deg C relative to pre-industrial)... When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius, which would have devastating consequences for the planet. We have 5 years to change the energy system, or have it changed

  Fatih Birol

  Years, Data, Track

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• Things That Don't Matter When You've Lived the Same Day Six Times and Died on at Least Two of Them: Lunch meats and their relative coolness.

  Lauren Oliver

  Two, Lunch, Meat

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• It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Years, Drunk

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “Lectures and biographical sketches”

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• Safety is relative. You can be so close to shore that you can practically feel it under your feet, when you suddenly find yourself breaking apart on the rocks.

  Jodi Picoult

  Rocks, Feet, Safety

  Jodi Picoult (2011). “Sing You Home: A Novel”, p.453, Simon and Schuster

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• He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people.

  Anton Chekhov

  Running, Two, People

  Anton Chekhov (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)”, p.2943, Delphi Classics

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• I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.

  R. C. Sproul

  Stress, Bridges, Numbers

  R. C. Sproul (2003). “Running the Race: A Graduate's Guide to What's Important in Life”, Baker Publishing Group

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• Above a certain level of income, the relative value of material consumption vis-a-vis leisure time is diminished, so earning a higher income at the cost of working longer hours may reduce the quality of your life. More importantly, the fact that the citizens of a country work longer than others in comparable countries does not necessarily mean that they like working longer hours. They may be compelled to work long hours, even if they actually want to take longer holidays.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Country, Holiday, Mean

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• It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

  Alan Moore

  Opportunity, Voice, People

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• You should be careful, tossing descriptors like that around in a situation like this. My ‘problem’ isn’t little. Unless you’re drawing some pretty wild comparisons. Please tell me you’re not drawing wild comparisons. Or blood-relative comparisons.

  Rachel Vincent

  Blood, Drawing, Littles

  Rachel Vincent (2013). “Soul Screamers Volume Three: If I Die\Never to Sleep\Before I Wake”, p.281, Harlequin

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• But everything is relative, Bertie... You, for instance, are my relative, and I am your relative.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Instance

  "Joy in the Morning".

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• Justice is a relative concept in all ages. The fourteenth century is no exception.

  Ian Mortimer

  Justice, Age, Century

  Ian Mortimer (2009). “The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century”, p.226, Simon and Schuster

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• Everything is relative. If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don’t look at its manifestation.

  Randa Abdel-Fattah

  Looks, Want, Causes

  Randa Abdel-Fattah (2014). “Does My Head Look Big in This?”, p.66, Scholastic UK

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• Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.

  Glen Cook

  Cutting, Evil, Taste

  Glen Cook (1992). “The Black Company: The First Novel of 'The Chronicles of The Black Company'”, p.281, Macmillan

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• To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Men, Soul, Mind

  Viktor E. Frankl (2015). “Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition”, p.40, Beacon Press

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